Sales compensation benchmarking is an excellent way for leaders to see whether their sales team’s pay is fair, competitive, and aligned with company goals. When done right, it motivates reps to sell the right products, helping the business hit revenue targets.
Many companies turn to consulting firms for this task because they have the market data to run careful analyses and know how to translate those numbers into practical pay plans. However, leaders must ensure they are working with the right people to make the right decisions moving forward.
Top Consulting Firms’ Guidelines
The following criteria were considered:
- Credible Data: Size, recency, and whether it is unique proprietary data
- Industry Experience: Depth of experience across relevant industries, and how long they have been practicing in sales compensation
- Method and Rigor: Clarity of a method for collecting data, analyzing results, and integrating findings into compensation plans
- Tools and Technology: Existing dashboards that made the benchmarking actionable
- Customization: Issuing studies by company size, territory model, or role types
- Client Outcomes: Evidence of tangible outcomes, reduced turnover, improved alignment
- Global Access: Supporting local, regional, or multinational benchmarking as necessary
Best Consulting Firms for Sales Compensation Benchmarking
The following firms are leaders in sales compensation benchmarking and are identified for their data, tools, and industry knowledge.
1. Alexander Group
Alexander Group is a specialist consulting firm that drives profitable revenue growth through better go-to-market (GTM) strategies. The firm draws on more than 40 years of research and work with revenue organisations. Such experience has helped its team bring value to compensation design and benchmarking.
Alexander Group is a strong choice when handling benchmarking as part of a larger revenue system. The firm’s strategies are supported by thorough data analysis, so its advice comes straight from facts. Nonetheless, the consulting team offers more than direction – it helps clients obtain relevant recommendations they can utilise to measure their success.
The firm deploys a diagnostic-first method – assessing current pay, sales roles, and performance gaps before proposing modifications. Then, collaborating with prospective frameworks and institutions that provide large datasets for benchmarking, it designs compensation plans based on relevant roles that encourage appropriate behaviours and facilitate quota attainment.
Having reviewed the client’s compensation plan, Alexander Group will help apply rigorous analysis to frameworks, coverage models, quotas, territory design, and sales productivity. This service, integrated with compensation recommendations, makes sure that benchmarking is actualized with how a sales organisation performs.
Deep research and opportunity to present: The firm publishes studies and operates a research programme and benchmarking programme that clients can participate in to gain access to benchmarking on their industry and trend reports.
2. Korn Ferry
Korn Ferry is a consulting firm that serves clients on a global scale to help you align pay and incentives with business strategy. Korn Ferry develops clear plans that motivate sellers and meet long-term talent priorities. Korn Ferry also combines consulting models with data and product tools to simplify and quantify compensation decisions.
Korn Ferry provides a proprietary method that requires diligently assessing current pay plans and methods of pay communication.
It then moves to design and benchmarking that involve role definitions, target pay levels, measures and weights, mechanics, and quota-setting. Its consultants test plans for differentiation and attainability so leaders can implement fair and effective pay programmes.
The firm also maintains a large sales compensation database for competitor benchmarking. The archive includes over 10,000 plans and 270,000 payout records from organizations worldwide. This depth of data lets Korn Ferry benchmark pay levels and set realistic quotas tied to market practice.
What it does well:
Plan Mechanics and Validation: It refines and examines important aspects, such as mix, measures, quota setting, and upside. Such an approach is there to ensure that incentives are useful for sellers to predict and understand finance.
Assessment and Diagnostic Insights: Korn Ferry reviews current compensation programmes thoroughly to prioritise changes that will move the business needle.
Implementation and Total-Rewards Alignment: The team supports rollout and change management and aligns sales compensation so pay programmes fit company-wide goals.
3. Mercer
Mercer is a human-capital consultancy committed to market data and total rewards. The firm publishes employer-reported salary surveys and marketplaces covering thousands of jobs and employee records. With such a large database, establishing compensation structures and understanding market practices is an easy task.
Mercer adds value to its data by providing tools to facilitate compensation planning and employee input. By simplifying the insight-gathering process, clients can identify benchmarks for pay and analyse how theoretical pay changes impact retention and budgets. Mercer products consist of survey tools that provide search capabilities and the Mercer Benchmark Database, making it easier for HR and rewards teams to conduct planning cycles supported by up-to-date market indicators.
Mercer also provides support for global planning and local market delivery. This service is useful for organisations that are located around the world or are dealing with different rules of pay across different jurisdictions. Mercer also provides useful research and publications that help leaders keep up with changes in pay trends and compensation policy to inform their planning and governance cycles.
What does it do well?
Market-Leading Survey Data: Mercer produces well-supported salary surveys in many categories that provide organisations with multiple markets for decision-making on pay.
Compensation Planning Tools: Mercer provides an excellent array of searchable survey tools and planning platforms that allow organisations to create budgets and model pay scenarios.
Global Planning and Local Insight: Mercer helps companies translate international pay strategy into local action by pairing global data with country-level guidance.
4. ZS
ZS builds sales compensation programmes with a heavy focus on analytics, technology, and easy execution. It pairs plan design with software and operations so benchmarking feeds directly into incentive calculation, quota management, and administration.
ZS implements a customised, data-first approach. It evaluates shortfalls in existing plans and develops incentive constructs that align with differentiated roles and market conditions. The firm also supports the roll-out by keeping the communication and administration transparent.
The firm has a set of software tools and metrics that companies can use to automate the calculations and track the performance metrics. In addition to the technology, ZS works with clients to apply behavioural science principles to compensation using motivation methods. This work illustrates the impact of analytics, planning, and operations on sales productivity.
What does it do well?
Strong Assessment and Plan Design: ZS assesses current programs, identifies gaps, and customises incentive plans that better align with a specific business need and culture..
Technology and Operation: ZS invests in artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics so benchmarking becomes operational.
Motivation Measurement and Data: It measures a salesforce’s motivation to link incentives to behaviour and productivity.
- Willis Towers Watson
Willis Towers Watson (WTW) is a global rewards and human-capital consultancy that combines large-scale market data with strategic advice. WTW places great importance on governance and regulatory readiness, so boards and compensation committees design defensible pay programmes. It publishes benchmarking surveys and data products, supporting executive and sales compensation decisions.
The consultant agency ensures it offers tailored guidance using analytics. Based on the insights it gathers, the team can touch on emerging issues such as pay equity, ESG-linked salaries, and disclosure requirements. This framework appears to be useful and essential if the compensation programme needs to meet stakeholder scrutiny.
What it does well:
Governance and Compliance: It helps compensation committees effectively adjust and manage regulatory expectations and associated disclosure requirements. This model ensures plans mitigate risk and appeal to investors and advisers.
Market Data and Analytics: The consultant team provides broad benchmarking surveys and data tools that give HR and rewards teams the inputs needed for pay decisions and reporting.
Executive- and Board-Level Advisory: WTW bridges the gap between pay design and shareholder expectations and long-term strategy. It is quite valuable in regard to balancing compensation programmes.
6. Deloitte
Deloitte is a global professional-services firm that treats sales compensation as part of a company’s larger strategy. It lets teams help clients properly define and optimize the pay, benefits, and incentive programmes so compensation supports business goals.
Deloitte integrates market and survey results with workforce analytics and planning tools. This practice helps leaders model the budget impact of pay changes and test different incentive scenarios. The firm also considers rewards and how incentives interact with job setup and workforce strategy.
Because Deloitte works across risk, tax, reward, and HR, it is often the most helpful when compensation design needs to address governance, regulations, and compliance. The guidance covers incentive governance and risk reviews for various sectors and promotes complex mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
What it does well:
Total-Rewards Integration: The company links workforce strategy to sales compensation, so pay changes consider benefits along with long-term planning.
Governance and Compliance: They also ensure incentive programme designs meet all the regulatory and governance expectations, making them valuable for business and regulated industries.
Modelling and Analytics: This comes with tools to model various pay scenarios and run what-if tests that make benchmarking actionable for HR and finance.
7. Alvarez & Marsal
Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) is a fact-driven, hands-on consulting firm known for turnaround, restructuring, and corporate performance work. The company takes action by digging into operations and finances and asking tough questions to fix problems quickly.
A&M’s strength is helping organisations with high stakes, such as restructurings or M&As. In those situations, compensation and incentives must often be rethought to match new financial targets or drive faster operational change. A&M’s consultants link pay and incentive fixes to the larger economic and operational plan so rewards support the business outcomes.
The firm works across many industries and geographies and frequently partners with private equities, corporate leadership teams, and boards that want fast, measurable results. That mix of execution means A&M excels in compensation work that must align with accounting and legal constraints. It also ensures plans are audit-ready or closely aligned with short-term value creation.
What it does well:
Specific Compensation Solutions for Turnaround Situations: A&M promptly identifies incentive misalignments and suggests compensation adjustments that further align with granting desired financial and operational goals.
Links with Finance and Operations: It connects plans for compensation design to accounting, tax, and/or performance metrics so that planning compensation systems are actually implemented.
Speedy, On-Site Execution: A&M tailors diagnostic work with on-the-ground execution to ensure that recommended changes are implemented and tracked for impact within hours.
8. Bain & Co.
Bain & Co. is an international strategy consulting firm that provides sales compensation as part of a broader GTM system. The company provides a focused diagnostic known as the Sales Compensation Booster. This finds the highest-impact fixes quickly and helps teams accelerate planning and change.
Bain links compensation work to its Sales Play System and wider GTM programmes, so incentives support the plays and behaviours that leaders want to scale. This makes benchmarking and plan design simple. The firm uses outside-in benchmarks, modelling, and play-based thinking to align pay with repeatable sales motions.
Bain publishes briefs and client examples to exhibit measurable impact from GTM changes and compensation, including reductions in cost of sales and uplifts in earnings before EBITDA (GTM changes) for targeted engagements.
What it does well:
Rapid Diagnostics and Prioritisation: The Sales Compensation Booster of Brain explores the best opportunities fast, so teams can concentrate on fixes that keep them moving forward.
GTM and Play Alignment: It designs compensation plans that effectively map the Sales Play System. The incentives reward the exact behaviours required for scalable and repeatable growth.
Measurable, Outcomes-Focused Design: Bain pairs plan design with modelling and client casework to show expected cost, quota, and productivity impacts rather than only recommendations.
How to Choose the Right Consulting Partner?
It matters which consulting firm leaders choose because the right one can solve their sales compensation problems. The following offers an excellent way to compare proposals.
Define the Problem and Success Metrics
Spell out what the company needs the consultant to fix. List the hard metrics most important for judging success and seeing change. Clear goals stop scope creep and make comparing proposals on equal terms easy.
Prioritize Industry Fit and Scale
Choose firms with proven experience in the industry and size of the company — their benchmarks and plan designs will be more relevant and faster to apply. Look for short case examples or outcomes that match the scale and business model. Industry fit often shortens the time to impact because the firm already understands typical quotas and pay norms.
Require a Diagnostic-First Methodology
The firm should start with a diagnostic of current-pay review, role mapping, performance-gap analysis, and data sources. Ask for a clear description of steps, sample deliverables, and what data it will use to see how it reaches recommendations. This lowers the risk of one-size-fits-all fixes and helps in judging whether the approach is rigorous.
Insist on Tools, Implementation, and Measurable Outcomes
Make sure the engagement includes modelling and tools, plus phased rollout support. Request measurable outcomes upfront and learn what the firm expects to change and how it will measure. Firms that only advise can leave a client with plans that collect dust.
Validate Governance and Scope
Confirm consulting firms understand the company’s type of governance, disclosure, tax, and compliance needs. Get a clear scope, timeline, milestones, and total cost, including subscription fees for benchmarking versus one-off studies.
Choose a Partner That Keeps Your Business Going
Picking the right consultancy for sales compensation benchmarking involves strategy. It would be better for you to concentrate on the measurable outputs and weigh the strengths accordingly. Focus on one that can provide measurable results and weigh each firm’s strengths against the company’s specific goals. When taking the right steps, clients can understand which partner will deliver the right outcomes for long-term success.
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